


Best Kept Secret

by FandomStar



Category: Charité | Charité at War (TV)
Genre: (But everybody knows somehow), Discovery, Established Relationship, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, M/M, POV Outsider, Period-Typical Homophobia, Secret Relationship, based on a headcanon, each section is accidentally a different style but it fits the story so I ain't fixing it, idk how else to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25627558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FandomStar/pseuds/FandomStar
Summary: Everybody at Charité knows the hospital's biggest secret. So how come it's also the one that's best kept?
Relationships: Otto Marquardt & Original Character(s), Otto Marquardt/Martin Schelling
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	Best Kept Secret

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on my headcanon that after the war, Martin and Otto's relationship is the one thing that everybody knows and casually accepts as existing, but nobody ever mentions it to anyone.  
> Anyway, as the tags say, each paragraph was accidentally written in a different style, but if anyone asks it was done on purpose to make it seem like the different characters were narrating their own parts! :D  
> I hope all 12 of you enjoy this! ;D

Wilfried Clauberg had been a surgeon for years. He knew he was easy to get along with, so it wasn’t surprising when he quickly made friends when he started working at  Charité. The closest among them being Otto Marquardt. They’d found themselves bonding over their shared outlook on life on a rare lunch break Otto hadn’t taken with Martin Schelling. Wil was almost certain that they must be an item, but didn’t have the heart to cause Otto unnecessary panic by bringing it up. When he found them once side-by-side at a window, whispering to each other with an arm around a waist each, his suspicions were all but confirmed. 

It was an uncharacteristically cold Summer day when Wil found the note at the nursing station. It had been left there, folded but partially opened. Having come across it before, Wil recognised Martin’s precise cursive and saw the fond way it had been signed off. Nervous that it may be discovered by someone less tolerant, he picked it up and carefully tucked it into a pocket in his coat. Otto was busy in surgery, but he knew where he would likely be afterwards. 

After completing his own rounds, Wil went in search of Otto in the break room. 

“Otto?” he asked the room after opening the door.

“Wil! What are you doing here?” Otto asked, seeming fairly cheerful - Wil concluded the surgery had gone well.

Wil stuck his hand into his pocket and drew out the note. 

“I found this at the nursing station. It’s from Martin. I didn’t read it, but I recognised his handwriting and signature,” he explained, reassuring Otto when he seemed about to panic. “I didn’t want anyone more nosy to find it.”

Otto exhaled, taking the paper from Wil’s hand. Nervously, he met the surgeon’s eyes with a small smile.

“Thank you,” he said. “You… you knew?”

Wil smiled. “I suspected. Small details. Seeing them is a bit of a trick of the trade.”

Otto chuckled.

“Really. Thank you.” he emphasised.

Wil shrugged. “Helping a friend.”

* * *

Andrea Gottlieb had a habit of knowing things she shouldn’t. Some would describe her as your typical gossiping nurse, but the thing was, she never actively went out of her way to find the secrets of Charité. They just somehow always seemed to come to her. She didn’t even want to know them half the time! 

That strange magnetism Andrea possessed was what got her into a bit of a mess with Martin and Otto. All she wanted to do was find some spare scrubs! She didn’t want to know that Nurse Schelling and Dr Marqaurdt used storage cupboard 107 instead of 24 like every other couple!

When she opened the door, she was faced with her colleagues wrapped in a passionate embrace, lips locked, Otto’s fingers in Martin’s hair. As much as she wanted to, Andrea could not look away. She was frozen in shock. However, when the pair noticed her, they looked completely terrified.

“Um… there wouldn’t happen to be any spare scrubs in there by any chance?” she asked, trying not to draw attention to what had just been witnessed and also trying to erase it from her memory (she could barely handle people talking about the love lives of her colleagues, let alone bearing witness to it herself).

“No. Sorry.” Otto lightly replied, after steadying his breathing and realising that Martin was too paralysed with fear to say anything.

“Right. Thank you anyway.” 

Andrea closed the door on them, before continuing her search.

* * *

Benedict Grohl knew how to read people. It was something he may as well have trained in as a psychiatrist. He knew when someone was lying, when they were worried about an ill relative, when their pet had died. It came in handy outside of work as well. He also found it entertaining to try to figure out the personal lives of his colleagues. Martin Schelling was one that both intrigued and frustrated him - he was  _ incredibly  _ difficult to figure out because of how much distance he put between himself and other people.

Other people, that was, who weren’t Otto Marquardt. Otto was a different story. He was an extrovert if ever Grohl knew one. Clearly, Otto still hid something (everyone did) but he was much more open than Martin. Which was why he initially found it so odd that Martin actively sought out his company. Until he saw the subtle signs of attraction - Martin was attracted to Otto. It certainly made his overall distance make more sense, especially if he’d already been convicted of sexual deviance. What didn’t make sense, however, was how Otto could be so oblivious to Martin’s feelings when he was so good with people. 

His answer came in the form of Marquardt himself. Otto came to Grohl’s office to pass on the files for a patient who was in need of psychiatric care once discharged from his care. 

“Martin… Nurse Schelling is watching over her now.”

Nothing else caught Grohl’s attention until Otto said Martin’s name - first softly, fondly, easily, secondly somewhat forced and reluctantly professional. After that, it was as though everything could suddenly be seen - his hair smoothed back instead of to the left, the two deep purple bruises at his neck badly hidden, the faint mark by his eye where something had pressed into his skin and his tie, which Grohl could have sworn Martin had been wearing when he saw him that morning.

Otto was not oblivious. He was hiding. He was hiding what Martin was clearly struggling to. Grohl smiled at Otto’s back as he left, pleased to have solved one of  Charité’s mysteries.

* * *

Elvira Storl had started work at Charité after the war in the pediatrics ward. She was living in the staff dorms, and had developed quite a good relationship with her neighbour, Martin, who was a nurse in the surgical unit. He was very sweet, and softly spoken, but didn’t seem to have many friends. The only person he seemed to have any kind of bond with was Otto Marquardt, a doctor within the same unit. Everyone else seemed to be pushed away if they got too close. Elvira had seen them together on occasion, if she’d had to take a letter mistakenly delivered to her dorm to Martin whilst he and Otto were taking a meal together, or in the halls between rounds. To the reader, it may be odd to find out that it took Elvira a whole month of living next door to Martin to figure out that he and Otto were lovers. After the third night in a week of having to listen to Martin’s sex life, she cracked. She spent the early hours of the morning trying to decide on a way to politely ask him to stop, or at least keep the noise down, before getting ready for the day. Awkwardly, she hovered outside Martin’s door, knocking after a moment. There was shuffling from inside, before the lock was turned. To Elvira’s absolute shock, she was met by an incredibly disheveled looking Otto Marquardt. She blinked several times.

“Dr Marquardt.” she helplessly greeted him.

It seemed to take a moment for Otto to process what was happening before his eyes widened and he cursed. “Nurse Grohl.”

Martin appeared, using the wall to balance himself as his body got used to having the prosthetic attached to it for another day.

“Elvira.” he said, sounding a little breathless.

Otto spun around to Martin.

“I’m so sorry, Martin, I didn’t think this through.” he profusely apologised.

Martin shook his head. “If I’d been awake enough to think, I would have stopped you.” Pushing away from the wall, he moved to stand at Otto’s side. “Well. Now that you know Otto and I are…”

“Sharing a bed.” Otto supplied, bringing a blush to Elvira’s cheeks.

“Yes. Now that you know that, how can I help you?”

Elvira was silent for a moment.

“By realising that these walls are very thin by tonight.” she eventually told them, firmly.

After standing in the doorway just long enough to see the humiliation on Martin’s face and the flush surface on Otto’s cheeks, she strode down the hall, determined to wipe the images of… that, from her mind.


End file.
